CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

1874 South West Lancashire by-election

UK Parliamentary by-election

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ16889846 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1874 South West Lancashire by-election was fought on 19 March 1874. The by-election was fought due to the incumbent Conservative MP, Richard Assheton Cross, becoming Home Secretary. It was retained by the incumbent.

Editorial summary

“1874 South West Lancashire by-election” enters the record as uK Parliamentary by-election. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what South, West and Lancashire can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1874—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around South, West and Lancashire.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“1874 South West Lancashire by-election” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, South, West and Lancashire provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16889846. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1874.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1874 South West Lancashire by-election”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1874 South West Lancashire by-election primary sources, 1874 South West Lancashire by-election archive and South research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1874 South West Lancashire by-election”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1874 South West Lancashire by-election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.